Remembering Katrina

The Reopening of New Orleans

In September and October of 2005 I went to New Orleans where I volunteered with the American Red Cross (ARC) as a mental health worker serving residents returning to the city. I was fortunate enough to be chosen as part of a special project for the reopening of the six largest zip codes in the city, essentially covering the area from Carrollton (Tulane University area) in the west to the French Quarter in the east and from the infamous Lake Pontchartrain in the north to the Mississippi River in the south. The entire project was known as the New Orleans Feeding Project which was designed to address the physical and psychological needs of residents responding to the Mayor’s reopening of the city by zip code. Initially I was the mental health worker in charge of one of the six sites but within two days was promoted to supervisor of the health and mental health services at the six sites.

Each zip code area was to receive daily bulk distribution of food, water and cleaning supplies for residents returning to the newly opened city. Attached to this effort were a team of mental health and health services workers per area. These teams consisted of a mental health clinician (psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical social workers) and two health care professionals (nurses, EMTs). During our orientation/training for the project we were told that team members were chosen for their ability to work independently, think outside the box, flexibility and tolerance. I don’t know if that was actually true or just part of a pep talk, but those qualities turned out to be essential for both carrying out the task assigned and surviving physically and emotionally. I found it interesting that the mental health worker was the designated leader of the mental health and health services teams. It turned out to be a good idea.

My team was initially assigned to a parking lot at Freret and Jena streets, right next to Memorial Hospital which is one of the hospitals you may have seen in the news clips of the flooding. The other five teams were assigned to similar parking lots or playgrounds in the five other targeted zip codes. The sites were chosen for their security (surrounded by a fence), their ability to be accessed by six large box trucks which brought the bulk supplies daily, and their familiarity to the residents. Each site was also given security by federal police and the National Guard.

The first day we entered the city before the residents began to arrive. It looked like a ghost town—a devastated ghost town with debris everywhere. The stench was overwhelming as the city had been flooded not only by water but also by sewage, oil, chemicals like benzene, lead and other heavy metals. In truth, few health professionals from the CDC and EPA believed that the city should have been reopened. The smell of mold was everywhere, along with the smell of refrigerators that had been left standing for over a month without electricity (think the smell of death). Look in any restaurant window and you would see food left behind, now covered with maggots. There was no electricity anywhere at that point. From a public health perspective, it was a nightmare with the potential for long-term health consequences for the residents.

The ARC staff immediately began to experience upper respiratory problems and allergenic reactions. We took a lot of antihistamines and Benedryl during the first few days in order to stay functional. Our shoes had to be bleached at the end of each day and clothing had to be washed daily.

The city itself was not really functional. There was no electricity; electrical wires littered the streets. The water was not potable. Only one hospital across the river in Jefferson parish was open, which meant that there was no health service in the zip code areas we were opening--think of an area of Center City and South Philadelphia with only one hospital and no dialysis because of contaminated water. There was only limited 911 service. Cell phone service was sporadic. And, there was debris (downed trees, roofing materials, siding from houses, contents of houses, and mud covered cars) everywhere. All of this was the context into which thousands of residents returned during the first few days of the city reopening. It was a context that made our jobs very difficult. People were overwhelmed with the loss of their home as well as the loss of their neighborhoods. To get a picture of what it looked like. Imagine the contents of every residence of a city pushed out the front door (furniture, appliances, clothing, etc.); then pile the mold covered drywall on top of that and then pile on any insulation the house had.

We were treating hundreds of people a day for all kinds of health and mental health problems. We would “work the line” of people who were waiting to go through the bulk distribution line to get supplies. There were people who were crying spontaneously, people with blank distant stares in their eyes, people who had lost relatives, friends, or all of their worldly possessions, people with diagnosed mental disorders who had not had their medications for two weeks or more. We saw people whose skin had peeled-off from exposure to the toxic water and had gone untreated for almost a month, people with severe infections, diabetics and chronic heart patients without medications. You name it we had to deal with it. The situation was worsened in that many of these residents returned from remote shelters or living with relatives only to find their homes completely destroyed and that there were no shelters open in the city of New Orleans even a month after the hurricane. Most areas were deemed too toxic or otherwise unsafe to open shelters.

After two days at my site, the supervisor of the six sites left and I was promoted to that role. Due to a shortage of mental health workers, nobody was sent to replace me at my site, so now I had to manage my own site and oversee the functioning of the other five sites. Fortunately, I had a car to go from site to site. Supervising mental health and health services at the six sites now meant longer days and administrative problem solving on top of my existing work. Over the next 14 days I was able to supervise the six sites and manage all of the related crisis across the sites (and there were many each day) only because of the professionalism of the other mental health and health services workers. They were truly the best of the best: caring, selfless, dedicated and relentless in their work.

I am home now, as are most of the initial workers who helped reopen the city of New Orleans. I learned at my out processing interview that the model of mental health and health care we created—much of it made-up as we went along—has been recognized by the ARC as a model for repopulating cities in future disaster relief efforts. On a personal level, while I recognize feelings of guilt in leaving to return to a normal life, I also know, both cognitively and emotionally, that for the past two and a half weeks I have felt significance and meaning in my life that I have never know before. Like all the volunteers, I gave a lot of myself, but I returned with much more than I gave.

I was privileged to help. But, now, four years later, I still hold the incompetent, arrogant, master of hubris known as George Bush responsible for the extent of this tragedy. This, of course, should not surprise anyone. A man who stole two elections and turned the United States into a quasi-banana republic, could never really understand and respond to human suffering.



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